Re: bash-3.00.16: infinite loop in "make check" on Compaq/DEC Alpha OSF/1 4.0

[Aharon Robbins]

> Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 08:15:23 -0700 (MST)
> From: "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe@math.utah.edu>
> Subject: bash-3.00.16: infinite loop in "make check" on Compaq/DEC Alpha 
> OSF/1 4.0
> To: bug-bash@gnu.org
>
> [ .... ]
>
> On Compaq/DEC Alpha OSF/1 4.0, the "make check" run produced an
> infinite loop in bash.  Here are the details:
>
>       Machinetype:            DEC Alpha 4100-5/466 (4 CPUs, 466 MHz, 2GB 
> RAM);          OSF/1 4.0F
>       Remote cc version:      DEC C V5.9-005 on Digital UNIX V4.0 (Rev. 1229)
>       Remote cxx version:     Compaq C++ V6.2-024 for Digital UNIX V4.0F 
> (Rev. 1229)
>       Package:                bash-3.0.16
>       Remote uname:           OSF1 mosso.math.utah.edu V4.0 1229 alpha alpha 
> unknown Tru64
>       Configure environment:  CC=cc CFLAGS="-ieee -I/usr/local/include" 
> CXX=cxx CXXFLAGS="-ieee -I/usr/local/include" 
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/lib -Wl,-oldstyle_liblookup -L/usr/local/lib" 
> FC=f77 F77=f77 
>
> The first problem that I hit was that y.tab.c would not compile; in
> general, it is not safe to assume that the output of yacc/bison/byacc
> on one system will compile correctly on another.  

I disagree with this.  The y.tab.c file should be completely portable,
or at the very least configured with config.h like the rest of an
application.  If this isn't the case, then it's a bug in the parser
generator that created the file.

In general, an application should not have any (or as few as possbile)
dependencies on other tools.  This means including the y.tab.c file and
not just the .y grammar file.  The next gawk release will use bison
2.0, but I don't expect users to have that program just to build and
install it!

> [ details omitted ]
>
> I then tried native c89 instead of cc: that produced a clean build,
> with no infinite loop.

This is clearly a compiler problem, not necessarily a problem in bash
or bison.

My two cents worth,

Arnold